WHO'S IN CHARGE AT SIU?

From neighboring Illinois this week came the following Associated Press dispatch: "More money and a good start on other issues resulted in overwhelming approval of the union faculty's first contract with Southern Illinois University's Carbondale campus, the union announced." The approved contract provides for an 8 percent across-the-board pay raise plus a 3.5 percent and merit raises in 2000. Ratification by the SIU Board of Trustees is expected.

Union officials stress that teachers went without raises for a year. So what? The raises are incredibly generous. Plenty of private-sector workers go without raises from year to year. Union officials make it clear that they would have liked more, but also say that this first contract is "a start." Reach for your wallets, taxpayers. We all know what that means.

Let's see now: Illinois has unionized university professors, who enjoy the almost unreal job protections of lifetime tenure, in a state with collective bargaining for public employees -- effectively unionized state government. Sounds like a good reason to live in Missouri, where none of these conditions obtains, and the poor taxpayer at least has a chance.

An annual battle is fought inside the Missouri General Assembly over whether we should adopt collective bargaining for public employees here. Missouri taxpayers should watch what unfolds in a nearby state that already has it. These are the stakes, with unionized teachers bidding fair to be literally running the institution that employs them.